The cost of the MoJ's Interpretation Project - unknown

Yelena McCafferty / Letters
/ 09 August 2013

Below is the response I received from the MoJ in relation to my attempt to find out the cost of the MoJ's Interpretation Project, the quest which I embarked on back in February 2012. A year and a half later, several FOI requests, internal reviews, complaints to the Information Commissioner's Office down the line, the MoJ admitted that no matter how I might phrase or refine my FOIs, they will be refused on the grounds of costs. It demonstrates to me that the MoJ doesn't know how much the running of the court interpreting reform has cost them internally since the "Interpretation Project" was set up in 2010. If nothing else, it's a sign of total lack of accountability within governmental departments, an unacceptable, ineffective way of running project teams and a waste of public money.

The FOI way of getting the non-existent cost figure has now been exhausted and I believe it may only be obtained after a thorough audit.

An interesting revelation in the decision notice by the Information Commissioner's Office is that between April 2011 and July 2011 a total of 15 (!) members of staff at the MoJ were working within the interpretation Project. That was even before the interpreting contract got implemented. We all know what great results this work has achieved so far.

The ICO at paragraph 3 of the Notice directed the Ministry of Justice to either provide you with advice and assistance to enable you submit a refined request within the cost limit or accordingly inform you if unable to provide such advice.

In your email of 27 October 2012, you asked:

Please confirm the total expenditure of the Interpretation Project within the Ministry of Justice, i.e. salaries, other employment costs and any bonus payments as well as running and other associated costs, for the period from 6th April 2011 to 6th July 2011.

Whilst we strive at all times to provide help and assistance in accordance with our Section 16 obligations, it is the MoJ’s position that it remains a requester's decision what scope they wish their request to cover. Every request for information shall therefore be considered on its own merits.

Having considered your request and because of the form in which information relating to the Interpretation Project Team is held, we are unable to provide you with specific advice on how you could submit a refined request to bring it within the cost limit. This is primarily because the information within the scope of your request is not accounted for separately or held centrally. I should explain for example that notwithstanding how the request is refined, given all staff who worked on the project did so on a part time basis, an estimate of how much of their time is attributable to the Project work remain a constant search parameter. And any search carried out to establish this individual staff cost would involve going through thousands of emails and personal documents (electronic and hard copies) which exceeds the costs limits considerably. Please note that this is only one of the constant searches as other constant costs will include determining the proportion of other numerous administrative overheads and expenses that could be attributable to the Project work.

We reiterate in conclusion that MoJ is aware and remain committed to its obligations under Section 16 of the Act but on this occasion we are unable to offer specific advice for reasons stated above.